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Why US communications law is obsolete

Jun 26, 2012

Amazingly, America’s core communications law all in all rests upon the technological limitations and monopoly economic assumptions of early twentieth century analog telephones and one-way analog AM radio transmissions, as if the digital revolution of the computer, broadband, smart phones, WiFi and the Internet never happened. Only in Government, which habitually adds without subtracting, could such obsolete ideas, notions and assumptions obliviously blob along in nearly complete contradiction to the world around them.

The old adage is true here

The old adage is true here, that if you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Then if you have communications laws nevertheless predicated on 1880′s railroad regulation, 1927 radio capabilities and 1934 economics, everything looks like it needs centralized government control and regulation.

At core, America’s communications law wrongly assumes technologically and economically that Americans have, and should have, one common analog electronic form of communicating — a telephone, and one common analog electronic way of receiving information — AM radio broadcasts. The obsolete technological and economic assumptions of these early 1900s technologies are now completely divorced from the reality of America’s fiercely competitive digital communications marketplace. However, they on the whole legally rule the analog remnants of American communications and nevertheless jealously entangle and impede the progress of modern digital communications.

The absurdity of our obsolete core communications law

To understand the absurdity of our obsolete core communications law, imagine if our transportation law nevertheless permanently assumed that the capabilities and economics of a horse and buggy should be the baseline for regulation of all modern transportation technologies that follow. Wisely Congress modernized transportation law in the 1970s and 1980s, and after all abolished the obsolete Interstate Commerce Commission in 1995.

Analog telephone circuits allow only one conversation, during digital communications enable ever increasing multiples of conversations on the same facility or spectrum. Unlike the real physical limits of analog telephones and AM radios, digital communication innovation has virtually limitless capabilities, and vastly better and constantly-improving economics because of Moore’s Law; Coopers Law; and optimization algorithms

Second, digital communications’ natural competitive economics fuel competition and possibility, which in turn empowers the consumer to choose whatever communication method they want at any given time or circumstance to meet their varied purposes, needs, wants and means. This natural competitive dynamic makes obsolete the notion in our law that Government regulators must approve what technologies, products or services are allowed to be sold to the public at what price, terms or conditions.

In sum, obsolete law is a drag on progress, because it discourages research and investment by assuming regulation is necessary when it is not, which in turn causes unnecessary inefficiency, long-delays, dead-weight costs and artificial uncertainty. Consider: the cell phone was invented in 1947, nevertheless not approved for commercial use until 1982; Internet packet-switching innovation was invented in 1969, yet not commercialized until the early 1990s; and computer modems were invented in the 1950s nevertheless not commercialized for broadband until afterwards 2000.

Unnecessary drag on everything it touches

American communications policy obsolescence is an unnecessary drag on everything it touches. The solution is simple — modernize America’s obsolete communications law.

Scott Cleland is Chairman of NetCompetition® a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests and President of Precursor LLC, a innovation consultancy for Fortune 500 companies.